Pierre Gasly said he was “super-excited” about having the chance to contend for pole position after leading final practice for the Azerbaijan Grand Prix.
The AlphaTauri driver equalled the best starting position of his career by taking fourth on the grid for tomorrow’s race. He was only a tenth of a second slower than Lewis Hamilton’s second-placed Mercedes.“It was an amazing day for us,” said Gasly. “P1 in FP3, I topped the session and then coming into quali, fighting for pole position with the Ferrari, the Mercedes and the Red Bull, which is something which [has] never really happened for us.”
Gasly was two-thousandths of a second away from beating Max Verstappen to third on the grid.
“I’m very, very pleased with our performance. P4, only a tenth away from the first row. Nothing to Max, which would have been nice to be in the top three, but that’s how it is.
“I think at the end of the day it was still a very, very strong lap and it put us in a fantastic position for tomorrow.”
Both AlphaTauri drivers reached Q3, though Yuki Tsunoda crashed at the end of the session. Gasly said his team mate should feel pleased with his efforts.
“He did very well. Especially building the pace session after session, I think he did very strong.
“This track is super, super difficult. We saw a lot of guys doing mistakes, crashing, touching the walls, going straight [on], even myself in practice. You’re just pushing the limits, such high speed, low downforce that it’s really easy to make a mistake.
“At the end of the day, I think he should be pleased with what he has done. And your first Q3 is always nice.”
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Horacio
5th June 2021, 20:06
The AlphaTauri seemed very quick during qualy. But for some reason in the last few races their cars seem unable to keep the pace during race. Anyway, I hope Gasly get a good result tomorrow.
RandomMallard (@)
5th June 2021, 21:42
I’m not sure if it is just bad race pace on the face of it. In Bahrain Gasly lost his wing fighting Ricciardo, in Imola Gasly was put on/chose full wets instead of inters and Tsunoda spun out of a points scoring position on the restart, in Portimao Gasly had to recover from that 5 second time penalty and a poor start, and in Spain Tsunoda had an engine problem. And I mean in Monaco you’re gonna finish where you started.
hamiledon
5th June 2021, 20:48
Another impressive lap from Gasly, it seems as his self-confidence increased, so did his speed.
Rhys Lloyd (@justrhysism)
5th June 2021, 23:58
Close to Verstappen, but Verstappen was quite a few tenths up on the run he had to abort.
Still, good result.
Applebook
6th June 2021, 0:02
Still easily faster than Perez in the Red Bull.
Balue (@balue)
6th June 2021, 7:49
Gasly is really getting good at qualifying, but makes mistakes in races.